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Poland to Summon US Ambassador Over FBI Chief's Holocaust Remarks


FILE - FBI Director James B. Comey speaks during a news conference in Washington, D.C., March 25, 2015.
FILE - FBI Director James B. Comey speaks during a news conference in Washington, D.C., March 25, 2015.

Poland will summon the United States' ambassador in Warsaw over an article written by a top U.S. intelligence official on Poland's alleged responsibility for the Holocaust during World War II, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

The article by FBI director James Comey, published in the Washington Post last week, prompted an outcry in Poland and drew condemnation in the media and from politicians.

A foreign ministry spokesman said on his Twitter account that the U.S. ambassador would be summoned to the ministry over the article, and that Poland would demand an apology.

Comey's article in the Washington Post earlier this week said: "In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do."

Poland says the passage wrongly implied it was complicit in the Nazi genocide of European Jews.

Poland's ambassador to the U.S. said in a statement the remarks were "unacceptable", adding that he had sent a letter to Comey "protesting the falsification of history, especially … accusing Poles of perpetuating crimes which not only they did not commit, but which they themselves were victims of."

Poland is one of the United States' closest European allies, and bilateral relations have been strengthened by the conflict in Ukraine and related tensions with Russia. Polish politicians have repeatedly called for an increased U.S. military presence in the region.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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